Writing Tips
What Are Sensitivity Readers?
Sensitivity Readers: What They Do and Why You Need Them Learn From My Mistakes It all began with my fascination with the Navajo Code Talkers. Their ability to rapidly send messages in a code they invented, using their native language, provided a huge advantage to U.S.Forces fighting in the Pacific …
Add Emotion to Fictional Characters
Expression of emotions in speculative fiction writing is crucial to engage readers and create a vivid, immersive experience. As a novel writer who struggles with adding emotion to my characters, I did Internet searches on the topic to help me. Lots of writers and educators have suggestions. I asked chatGPT …
Add Emotional Depth to Characters
Character Symptoms: emotionless, bland, and uninteresting Imagine a critique partner reads your first chapter and says: DIAGNOSIS: Your character is not relatable It’s time for a transplant of personality, humanity, emotion, and agency. Character’s Emotional Reaction to the Plot Characters should show emotion in how they react to situations confronting …
Keeping the Words Flowing with Flow State
I attended the recent RMFW Gold Conference looking for ways to increase my creative output. It takes me months to write a 4k-word short story. Unless I become more productive, completing a novel will be Herculean. Nikki Terpilowski’s session on flow state promised a solution, but flow state sounded kind …
Non-Humans as Round Characters
Speculative fiction writers often cast non-human characters in their stories. Those aliens, elves, fairies, and pointy-eared Vulcans are among a large number of possible strange creatures. As they write, spec-fic authors must live with their creations for many months and readers must read about them for many hours. Neither group …
Dots and Dashes for Fiction Writers
In a recent critique session, the subject of punctuation arose. Should a fiction writer use exclamation points, colons, and parenthesis? What is the right way to use the hyphen (-), dash (—), and ellipsis(…)? Experienced fiction writers rarely use exclamation points. It has the same problematic effect as typing in …
Writing and Critiquing Fantasy
During the pandemic of 2020, fantasy writing experienced an astounding increase in popularity, perhaps a form of escape, with a massive increase in stories written for adults. The statistics compiled by WordsRated.com show fantasy book sales in 2021 increased 45%, compared to 2020. This was the largest increase among all …